Dressing for Success on Valentine's Day

NOTHING is actually known about the Christian martyr who was buried near Rome on Feb. 14. There were a number of different St. Valentines; even Pope Gelasius had no idea who the guy was when he established a feast in his name in the fifth century. Historians assume that he did so as a means of whitewashing the pagan holiday Lupercalia, an ancient Roman tradition of worshiping the goat lord Pan (known as Faunus in Roman cosmology), to rid the city of evil spirits and restore fertility. A dog and a goat were usually sacrificed; salt cakes were burned by vestal virgins.

The high-end lingerie store Kiki de Montparnasse is named for the mistress of Man Ray, an artist’s model for a number of Dada guys back in the wild nineteen-teens. It’s quiet, sleek and expensive with dim, soft lighting, vintage black-and-white nude photographs and a library of erotic art and literature. They play slow, moany French lounge-pop and Portishead. The whole decadent vibe seems designed to be alluring even to the rich, uptight and squeamish who, in the past, may have shied away from the trappings of bondage because they seemed too garish and sleazy.

The store’s atmosphere has the effect of making its superbly made (and astronomically priced) fetish accouterments look respectable. If the movie
“Atonement”
had been rated NC-17, Keira Knightley might have been ravished in the library wearing a silk blindfold and leather wrist cuffs from Kiki de Montparnasse, and it still wouldn’t have looked too Cinemax.

In the entranceway, a heavy black Jacobean table with spiral legs is set with a plunge-necked silk corset by the Parisian house Cadolle, copies of “X: The Erotic Treasury” by the literary sex-bomb Susie Bright and a mirrored tray with gold-plated handcuffs and a matching half-mask. Vitrines and glass cases throughout the store hold a royal dungeon’s worth of silk ropes, leather whips and pearly restraints.

I was curious about two medium gumball-size silver ball bearings.

“Are those Ben Wa balls?” I asked the saleswoman, a Library Spice type with cat-eye glasses in a low-cut silk boudoir top. “I thought they were supposed to be attached to a rope.”

Photo

Kiki de MontparnasseCredit
Deidre Schoo for The New York Times

“These are the more traditional Ben Wa, like the geishas used,” she informed me warmly, taking them out of the vitrine and placing them in the palm of my hand, where they jingled in a suggestive fashion.

“These are advanced,” she said in response to the confusion in my eyes. “We also have a practice version, for beginners.” She guided me to a much darker corner of the store and produced what I supposed was the Fisher-Price version: larger gumballs in light marble colors with a white rubber ring like a silicone six-pack holder attaching them.

Apparently Ben Wa balls are marvelous for exercising your pubococcygeus muscles — and at least you can lord that over your Pilates instructor.

Agent Provocateur is only few of blocks away from Kiki de Montparnasse, but it is considerably closer to the old 42nd Street in spirit. The vibe is more user-friendly for embarrassed guys shopping alone and packs of teenage girls; the lights are brighter, the music is dumber, louder and younger. The haute factor seems played down everywhere but in the price tags (purple silk garter, $100; matching bra, $150; matching thong, $70). Many items fall into a black and pink, rockabilly hot-rod style. It is, in essence, a vamped-up version of Victoria’s Secret by way of Johnny Rockets, the retro diner chain.

I guessed that a rack of short see-through plastic raincoats were designed for something akin to intimate pudding wrestling. Then I realized they probably were really designed for ... I can’t remember what, because when I got home, I snorted Clorox and bleached the thought right out of my mind.

Agent Provocateur recently introduced a “demi-couture” line called Soirée, for those who wish to pay more for what the Agent puts out. A handmade studded bra top with a Peter Pan collar and capped leather sleeves was $1,590. I admired the studded and structured Heloise corset — it had three-inch metal spikes protruding from each hip — that resembled an amorous blowfish ($4,900).

I INQUIRED about the price of a ladies’ tuxedo jacket, since I couldn’t find the tag, and learned that the jacket was not sold separately from its matching black satin teddy ($1,700).

“Would you still like to try it on?” one of the tattooed ladies asked.

“I’d rather see it on you, actually,” I replied.

Photo

Agent ProvocateurCredit
Kirsten Luce for The New York Times

She very sweetly and immediately obliged.

I inspected the peplum and the Balmain-esque shoulder pads. “It’s a very small size, isn’t it?”

It was refreshing to hear a demi-couture jacket’s merits discussed in terms of cup size. I was surprised that a 32D didn’t look at all freakish or disproportional, like a Japanese robot or Pam Anderson during her Kid Rock phase.

It is important to remember that Valentine’s Day was originally a time to ritually exorcise evil spirits and restore one’s city to health and fertility.

Good luck finding a vestal virgin or a goat at Kiki de Montparnasse or Agent Provocateur. But salt cakes can be made inexpensively. And ancient pagan bacchanals, in all likelihood, have always involved some form of lingerie.

KIKI MONTPARNASSE

79 Greene Street (near Spring Street); (212) 965-8070

AGENT PROVOCATEUR

133 Mercer Street (near Prince Street); (212) 965-0229

A version of this review appears in print on January 28, 2010, on page E4 of the New York edition with the headline: Dressing for Success On Valentine's Day. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe